WARNING: there will be spelling errors.

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I’m pretty in love with the Alder Shirtdress by Grainline Studio. This version is a good vacation dress, breezy fun, colorful, but yet slightly polished. I feel like I could wear it to the Grand Canyon and still get into a fancy restaurant for dinner (if I went to fancy restaurants for dinner).

I didn’t wear it to the Grand Canyon (we went hiking) but I did wear it on the drive back to the airport. I made my boo stop on the side of the road somewhere near the Hoover Dam to get in the pretty background. He had a slight trouble understanding why we couldn’t just take picture in the back yard. It’s a desert dress! We have to take pictures in the desert!

(Totally worth it)

I bought this fabric sometime last summer at Harts Fabric on a trip to Santa Cruz. I’m fairly positive I bought it specifically for this pattern. Knowing that you think I would have bought just a smidge extra for stripe matching but naw, why be prepared? I like to live on the edge. Thankfully most of the stripes match up rul well. The only thing is I wish I had moved the left top piece over slightly so the pattern in the pink matched up on both sides. I also wish I had extra fabric so I could wrap everything I own in it and make a matching entire wardrobe. It’s so soft and lovely! Sadly I used every bit of it for this dress and it looks to be sold out all over the interwebs.

But take a look at that back collar! Dats some nice matching.

The pockets, on the other hand, were a happy accident.

I didn’t realize the stripes repeated in reverse, so when I cut out the pockets it took me a sec to figure out why everything didn’t match up perfectly. But then I decided I liked it better. I think it makes the pockets stand out, but not too much. In a nice way.

I really like how the pattern fits. I made no changes other then grading from a 10 up top to a 12 in the tush. I think next round I could cut a straight ten and be fine. It’s a loose fit and I would mind the waist having slightly more shaping. I’ll also move the buttons a tad in the next rendition. It pulls slightly up top which I think could be fixed better with button placement then with sizing.

On our way home from the Grand Canyon we also stopped by a small diner for some breakfast and found this beauty…

They really know how to get me!

I’ll end with this pic. Not sure what’s happening in this photo, I think I might have lost something.

Some times you win, sometimes you loose, sometimes you cut a hole in your almost finished garment while clipping a seem. It HAPPENS.

See what I did there.

So, what happened was, I was cutting the collar facing because somehow I sewed it into the shirt when I was trying to finish the edges (funny how often that occurs) and I accidentally snipped the back of the shirt. Pretty much exactly what I’ve done multiple times with my surger, but turns out I didn’t even need my surger to do that this time! Lucky me.

(Picture pre-incident, when everything was going so well)

If you look at the pattern pieces, you’ll notice the shirt is made so the back yoke is all one piece with the front yoke area. So to fix this tiny little minuscule mistake, I would have had to take apart the entireeeeee shirt. LAME. And, I was almost done.So instead I patched the hole by making some ghetto double sided iron on interfacing (that’s when you sort of remove the non sticky part of single sided interfacing so it’ll stick two things together. Super MacGyver and shit). I ironed a little patch onto the back and then hand stitched around it.

I think I did a pretty good job. I was considering putting interfacing over the inside of the back so it doesn’t unravel, but I didn’t want to make it too bulky. I’ll just have to see how it wears.

What’s MORE important, is how awesome this Deer&Doe pattern is, it’s like super awesome. A few weeks ago I stumbled into magic-land and discovered the lovely Paunnet and then she led me to THE BEST MOST ADORABLE INDEPENDANT FRENCH PATTERNS OF ALL TIME, aka Deer&Doe. Or also, the only independent french patterns I know of, there could be a gold mine of indy Frenchie patterns out there, just waiting for me to discover.

For now I’ll just enjoy these little babies:

It took me a whole two seconds to order the dress upon seeing Paunnet’s darling renditions. I was slightly concerned about ordering the top as well. The main factor was I just wasn’t sure if the Airelle Blouse would suit my body type. You know, how sometimes these things look adora-face in photos, but the model is nothing like your body type and you look like a wrettched sack of flour? I have the too many sack-of-flour-patterns issue down solid, but I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing that and avoiding actually making these patterns up. For some reason I thought this was one of them (maybe it was the collar, I just feel like I don’t look good in collars…) but boy, was I wrong. No way I could look like a sack-of-flour in this lovely fitted little number:

Chambray Airelle Blouse

Also I didn’t mean to practically make the EXACT same shirt as the one in the sample, it was just one of the few bits of fabric that I trekked over from the homeland. I was going to use it for a Collette dress but decided it was too light weight. It’s just perfect for this top.

For the next rendition I was thinking I might make a size bigger, or cut sleeves a little longer or shorter, but I really don’t thing I’d change it too much. I might have to try a more rounded collar, oh and to not cut a hole in the back of the shirt. But no promises.

One of my favorite books when I was a kid was the book Corduroy, about a little stuffed bear at a department store that was trying to find a button for his overalls. I don’t remember the whole story, but I do remember there was some sewing involved. Foreshadowing my friends, foreshadowing.

Green Overalls. Green Skit. Coincidence? I think not!

Fast forward till the second week of February, 2013 and guess who finally finished a project?! Whooooohooo, this girl!

That’s right. I was inspired but the ever adorable Tilly and this post to pick up a copy of Grainline’s Moss Skirt pattern. And tell you what, I’m so glad I did. It is just the perfect amount of simple and adorable. I pulled out all the stops too, finished the edges properly and topstitched like a queen. I decided to lengthen the skirt and ended up adding 3 inches. Which was a bit tricky because I didn’t have any tape to adjust the pattern. (Don’t worry, I MacGyvered my way out of that situation.)

The material is some olive-green corduroy that made the trek with me across the pond. I was going to make a Colette Parfait with it, but decided the fabric was too thick for that dress. Didn’t realize Tilly’s version was corduroy too until I was typing this up. Is corduroy back? Is that A thing? I’m never sure. But I do know it’ll be lovely with some tights as the weather gets warmer.

The only thing I would change is the zipper. I used a chunky zipper and it looks a little wonky when I put it on. I also did something weird when I made up the fly, not sure what. To tell you the truth, I didn’t 100% follow the directions, or read them all the way though (shocking), so not sure what I did wrong. But the size fits me well and I feel like I might have a few more of these in my future.

Just look how professional this little baby is? And oh my! Is that Liberty fabric I see for the pocket lining? Lordy me, I just think it is. How fancy!

I know, I know, no pictures of me actually wearing the darn thing. What can I say, the lighting is terrible all day, every day this time of year. Maybe I’ll try to go outside with my camera, in the middle of the day, while wearing the skirt, and figure out the timer on my camera, sometime soon. But no one hold their breath or anything.

[EDIT]

+Photos of Maeve in skirt! Sorry it’s a tad blurry, I need to figure out how to take pictures of myself in this bleak winter darkness.

I mean, not super exciting as you can’t se any detail. But proof it fits!

I know what you’ve been thinking Interntes – ‘Hey, what’s up, where you been at girl? Why you never call? What’s with those empty promises like, I’ma make one thing a week, and all that. Huh? What? Yeah.’

I know. I’ve been a massive let down. What can I say, sometimes you follow though on promises. Sometimes you move to Berlin.

Yes, Berlin. Let me catch you up to speed.

I think in my last post I was pulling myself together before I hoped on a plane down to San Diego to go to Coachella. Upon my return I was told by my work that I could go to Berlin (YAY!) in two weeks (say what?!) for 3 months (I mean, why not?). I really quickly tried to finish a few projects. I started to make these little bags for packing (yes, more of them), I tried to complete this dress (yeah, still not done), I attempted to finish one of preciously mentioned baby hexagon quilts (not a chance), and I packed enough yarn to knit socks for an entire rugby team (nothin’ keeps baby warm quite like a pair of hand knit socks).

Needless to say I did too much dividing and not enough conquering. What did I actually do you ask? Well, I did knit 2.65 pairs of socks and made some darn good dinners.

When I returned I thought so myself, Berlin, we’re not done. I did a lot, sure, but there were somethings left unfinished, stones left unturned, beers undrank. I never did those super Berlin things like, ride my bike though the city, or go to Checkpoint Charlie, or buy a record player at Maur Park. It only took me two months to beg, borrow, and steal a plane ticket back here. But don’t worry San Francisco, I’ll be back darling, you know I can’t quit you.

What’s next on the docket? Well, I’m going to find a place to live. Then, I’m going to fill it with all my $%^#. This should give me ample opportunities to make things. And I have to pick out this apartment soon, because I couldn’t pack my better half, aka my Grandma’s Singer, and I’m itching to go out and buy a new one along with some other really important things I need in life, like an immersion blender. These are the kinds of things that need a home, and don’t take kindly to being hauled around the city in the bottom of suitcases.

To sum up, my current goals are:

Find an adorable apartment to rent

Obtain a sewing machine (use any means or force necessary)

Become a host on Airbnb

Take a 3-4 day weekend trip every 4-6 weeks.

Lots of Post Cards

Lets see if I can’t exceed expectations on these instead of leaving them vastly unaccomplished.

I usually spend more time with hammer and nails then I do contemplating my cuticles. That being said, darn old pintrist has done it again and I just couldn’t get these beauties out of my head:

She used gold leaf and I just used gold nail polish – but the results are fairly similar. Mine are a bit more smudged, and yeah my photos aren’t as professions.

There’s quite a bit of polish on them. Two coats of sea-foam followed by two coats of gold on the tips. Then a layer of clear. I just free-handed the tips, they’re not perfect but I think I prefer them this way. Now let’s just see how long they last.

You know I may never finish that quilt, or that other quilt (no actually I have to finish that one, it’s a gift), or that(those) dress(es), but oh well. What kind of creative would I be if I didn’t have any unfinished projects in my stash? A sad one indeed.

So I left the unfinished projects to stay that way for a bit longer and made another version of that Wiksten dress I like so much (told you I’d be back).

I didn’t line it and kept it the same length as the pattern. It turned out pretty swell, except I used packaged bias tape along the neck instead of making my own. Silly little lazy girl, don’t think it turned out as well as the sleeves. Meah.

I might try to draft in boobie darts in the next version. Would probably help the fit and might be fun to try.

I didn’t think I’d like the light blue chambray so much, but it’s really growing on me. I might need to make the burda style book top with the rest of it… humm… *wheels turning*